New York's York Gets Isaac, Schmidt & Jones Off-Broadway's York Theatre Company, currently hosting the new musical No Way To Treat a Lady, will round out its 1996-97 season two more unusual musical productions: a rewrite of two rare Ford/Cryer musicals, and a musical revue of songs by Schmidt and Jones, composers of The Fantasticks -- with the writers singing their own songs.
The Last Sweet Days, with book and lyrics by Gretchen Cryer and music by Nancy Ford, takes the first act of their Off-Broadway musical, The Last Sweet Days Of Isaac, and pairs it with a condensed version of their Broadway musical, Shelter (about a woman who communicates only with her computer). The new story will be a fable about a poet and a secretary stranded in a stalled elevator, then meeting again 20 years later. Worth Gardner directs the show, which begins performances March 19.
Cryer and Ford are the musical team who created I'm Getting My Act Together And Taking It On The Road.
According to the theatre's subscription form, "Technological advances since [Isaac and Shelter] were first performed have made what were whimsical looks into a future world of computers a virtual reality!"
Capping the York season will be The Show Goes On, a "Portfolio" of theatre songs composed and performed by their authors -- Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. These are the guys who gave us I Do! I Do! (revived Off-Broadway earlier this year), 110 In The Shade, Celebration, and, of course, the eternal Fantasticks. The Show Goes On, beginning May 21, will feature songs from (and cut from) those shows, as well as numbers from their current projects, Grover's Corners and Mirette. For tickets ($30-$35) and information on No Way To Treat A Lady or the other shows in York's season, playing at St. Peter's Church at the Citicorp Center on Lexington Avenue, call (212) 935-5820.
--By David Lefkowitz